"Yakima Jane Doe" homicide victim identified 47 years later as woman from Vermont

YAKIMA - A woman who was found dead in an abandoned car 47 years ago in Yakima has been identified.

Authorities said in July of 1977, police were called to a nearby parking lot of a Yakima hardware store at 309 S. Front St. after an employee called and said there was an odor coming from a parked vehicle. Officers with the Yakima Police Department responded to the scene and found the body of a woman hidden inside the vehicle.

Forty-seven years after that discovery, the Yakima Police Department announced Tuesday they have identified the woman as Vereta "Joni" Gates, 25, of Vermont.

According to investigators, Gates was found with several injuries to her body. An autopsy in 1977 determined she had been strangled.

Gates' surviving family include her sister, Meri Lee, and two brothers, Geoffrey and David. Authorities contacted Gates' family and they learned she was what her family called a "wanderer." They said she was known to hitchhike between Vermont and New York, as well as the west coast. Authorities said they learned Gates was at a hospital in Chicago two weeks before her body was found in Yakima. Her family said they never gave up the search for her.

"We are eternally grateful for the many hours and efforts the Yakima Police Department and the Othram Corporation have contributed to the mission of identifying her [Gates] and notifying us," the family said in a statement. "This has thankfully allowed bringing closure to our family after a 45-year search for her and a for a wound that never healed."

The homicide investigation

Investigators with the Yakima Police Department said clothing was found near Gates' body that included a yellow handmade dress, white underwear stenciled with "Scott Lillie-2H", blue corduroy "Farrah" brand jeans, a green sweater and a blue shirt. They attempted to identify Gates by doing dental and fingerprints, but they were not able to get any further information. Investigators created dental records from the remains and did a nationwide search, but it did not provide any hits on identification. Investigators said they received tips from the public from all over the country, however, they had no solid leads in the case. Gates was buried in a Washington Cemetery, known to the public as "Yakima Jane Doe."

New science, new technology

Authorities said in 2004, they asked the Yakima County Coroner's Office to exhume the remains of the Yakima Jane Doe so they could be sent to the King County Medical Examiner's Office for further forensic testing. She then was transferred to the University of North Texas for the development of an STR profile. An STR is what is known as a "short tandem repeat". The STR analysis is used to compare repeats in DNA samples. This profile was then uploaded into CODIS in 2005 but no matches were found. In April of 2016, details of the case, including the profile, were entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs).

Othram Corporation works on the case

In 2022, the Yakima Police Department submitted forensic evidence from the Yakima Jane Doe to Othram in The Woodlands, Texas. Othram is well-known for a number of cases, including several who are high-profile , in identifying people using what is called "Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing®". This is achieved by working to find relatives and identifying the DNA. Othram's team was able to put a profile together by doing an extensive genetic genealogy search and gave those results to investigators. Investigators then worked the case and they were able to identify a person who they believed may be a relative of the Yakima Jane Doe and asked for a DNA sample. Once the DNA sample was compared to the Yakima Jane Doe, it was found to be a match. Investigators were able to identify the woman as Gates.

A suspect in the Gates homicide has not yet been identified.

Gates' family named several members of the Yakima Police Department, the Coroner's Office and Othram and thanked them for their hard work and the extreme measures they went to in identifying their sister.

"To all those whose names I do not have, but helped in great or small ways, many thanks, we are grateful," the family wrote. "May God Give Us more people like you."

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